Songs: Shantel - Disko Partizani; Major Lazer - Light It Up
"Alright, time to start scavenging. We're going to need lots of stuff and a workshop to put everything together. I've been looking into finding workshops, but couldn't really get anywhere, unfortunately. So, unless you guys have any ideas?" Anouk asked. Nadia was still fast asleep, while the three of us were trying to find the best way to go about this new leg thing.
"I know a guy." Mordecai said.
"Okay, that's good. So how about you go and ask him if we can use his workshop to make your girlfriend a new prosthetic leg? The two of us can go and get the rest of the materials. We're gonna need titanium and carbon fibre and a whole lot of microchips, because Gaige built in a bunch of extras here and I'm not sure if you even want them, but they all seem pretty cool and-"
"Yeah, I asked Gaige to put them in there." I interrupted her. Anouk looked up from her drafts and smiled.
"Alright then. Let's do this, friends." she said.
"I'll echo you the location of my guy, once I'm there and got the workshop. Anything else you need there?" Mordecai wanted to know.
"Well... a laser cutter would be great, but we can probably find a way to do stuff without that, I suppose..."
"I'll organize one. Anything else?"
"Lots of clean space?"
"Already done. I'm off then." Mordecai said and put a fast travel code into the system. Shortly after he dematerialised and was gone.
"Alright, so where are we going?" I asked.
"We're going to one of the fanciest places on this planet." she answered. I sighed. I had had my fair share of fancy places for a good while now, I wasn't sure if I wanted to see another fancy place.
"It's not gonna take long, don't worry. I already worked out exactly what we need. We'll go there and I'll get the stuff and then we go right to the workshop. Plan?" Anouk said while she put in another fast travel code. I nodded quickly.
"Plan." I answered, just as we dematerialised and found ourselves in a modern looking building the next second. We were in some sort of building. There was glass everywhere - tall windows made of glass, glass panels to separate sections, glass everywhere. The walls were kept in white, making the place clean looking. There were some obligatory plants all over the place.
"The hell is this place?" I asked. It looked like some futuristic workplace or shopping mall, just all in one building.
"This is Acadia. One of the biggest sellers of parts and materials in this galaxy. For private purposes of course. Technically all the big corporations would be the biggest sellers, but we really only sell them as guns. And some of the raw materials, too. It's complicated. Anyways, we should get all we need here." Anouk explained and walked over to a data pad mounted at a wall.
I kept looking around, open-mouthed. I hadn't seen anything like this before. I mean, yeah, I knew of Acadia, but I had never been inside the place. If I needed some parts I'd usually get them with a small retailer. Not at the wholesale.
"Excuse me, Ma'am, can I help you with anything?" someone next to me said. I looked over and there was a staff member, wearing all black, with a badge hanging around her neck. She looked at me, a little concerned.
"Uh... no, I'm okay, thanks." I said and quickly walked over to the data pad Anouk was working on. She was typing on it furiously and I was surprised how fast she got all the stuff together. It was like she was working here herself.
"This place is fantastic!" I told her. She smiled and continued to quickly tap on the data pad and gather up materials. I glanced over at the balance of credits in the corner that was constantly going up. But thankfully it wasn't even near my limit. Looked like I could afford a new leg and a ticket back to Pandora.
"Okay, so what colour do you want your leg?" Anouk asked.
"What?" I blurted out. I wasn't expecting any questions at all, so I was kind of taken aback by that.
"What colour do you want your leg? There are all kinds of colours you can get, so you might wanna take a look."
I looked down at the display and Anouk was right. There were all sorts of colours, some costing more and others less. It was pretty insane. The amount of available choices didn't make it easier for me, though.
"I dunno. What do you think? I'm kinda going towards black, but red is cool, too." I said. Anouk shrugged and grinned at me.
"I work for Vladof, red is my favourite colour. But I mean, I can order one and the other as a spray paint, so if you ever get sick of the colour, you can just change them." she answered. Okay, that was good.
"Cool, get me a red leg then and black as spray paint." I told her, when I heard my ECHO beeping. It was Mordecai with the location of the workshop. Looked like things were coming together.
"Aaaaaand... order!" Anouk said and tapped on the display one last time. She looked over at me and grinned.
"We're done? Where do we get the stuff?" I wanted to know.
"We've got a digistruct code and we can digistruct it when we get to the workshop. Did Mordecai send anything yet?" Anouk asked. I nodded.
"Yeah, he just sent us something. Looks like it's out in the slums. Let's go." I answered. Anouk nodded and pulled up the fast travel code from her ECHO device while we walked back to the Fast Travel station.
Within the next minute we were standing in the slums, right on a busy road. It looked like the workshop was in some small side street, around a few corners. I looked down at my map and then gestured to Anouk to follow me. We went into a little alleyway and then turned left into another small street. It didn't take us long until we ended up at the workshop. It looked pretty big and more like one of Scooter's garages.
"That the place?" Anouk asked.
"Looks like it." I told her, as we walked up to it. It was dark inside, but I could make out Mordecai's silhouette in the back of the garage.
"Mordy?" I shouted.
"Back here. Don't worry, the place is set up and ready." he answered. I walked to the back of the garage, Anouk following me. Mordecai was standing next to a small door, seemingly leading to a different section of the building.
"Alright, do we work here?" Anouk wanted to know. Mordecai shook his head and opened the door.
"We're going to a proper place to build cybernetic limbs. It's a bit hidden away, because the guy I know is making them illegally. And selling them on the black market. He's also doing some illegal modifications, so none of you can say a word about this, alright?" Mordecai told us. Anouk and I both nodded as we followed him through another set of doors. We were in a small room with only a desk in it now. There were a few boxes standing around in a corner. Mordecai went over there and moved them out of the way, revealing a door in the ground, leading down into a cellar.
We all followed him down the narrow stairs and ended up in a bigger room that looked more like what we needed. There was a laser cutter and there were several molds for limbs standing on shelves. Mordecai's friend was sitting in front of a computer and looked up at us, giving us a warm smile.
"Come on in, lock the door behind you. Who of you needs the new leg?" he asked with a big smile on his face.
"Uh... that would be me. Hi." I said.
"Ah, you are Nova then, right? Mordecai's girlfriend? And then the young lady must be your daughter." the guy said.
"Uhm, yeah. Yeah, that's right."
"Good, good. Just so you know, if you end up telling someone about this, I will find you. It won't be fun and you'll need more than some prosthetics after. Understood?" he said and his smile was suddenly gone. Anouk and I both nodded quickly. I guess that was the price we had to pay for making a prosthetic in the workshop of a black market seller. Could have been worse. Once he saw us nodding, his smile returned to his face and he sat back down at his computer.
"Very good. My name's Hernan, by the way. Now, don't let me bother you. You do your stuff. If you wanna use any of my molds, go ahead, but clean up after you use them, okay?" he said.
"Sure thing. Alright, let's do this. Nova, you and Mordecai, go and find a mold that fits your leg while I start programming all these micro chips. I'll walk you two through the whole process of making the actual leg, don't worry. We'll be done in no time." Anouk said and walked over to a console. She was fiddling with her ECHO device for a while until a bunch of materials finally digistructed in the middle of the room.
"Ah, perfect. Now, go and see which size mold fits you and bring it back, okay?" Anouk repeated and went to the pile of materials to gather up all the microchips. Mordecai and I looked at each other and then shrugged and went over to the shelves with different molds. It took us a while until we found the ones for legs, but after that we found the right fit pretty quickly.
"You got it? Great. I've got the titanium heating up over there. Put the mold together and put it on the marked spot. Then your job's done for now." Anouk said without even looking up from her console. It was fascinating to watch her, as she was programming microchip after microchip.
Hernan was standing behind her and was watching her programming, while we hoisted the mold onto the marked spot. It was surprisingly heavy, but at least I knew the actual leg wouldn't be that bad in the end. Gaige had shown me her robotic arm and it was made from Titanium and carbon fibre, too, and that didn't seem too heavy. When we were done with the mold, he looked up at us and nodded happily.
"The girl knows what she's doing."